This Moment...I Am

Holding the mala beads in my hands I begin to chant Aham Prema – I am love. It occurs to me that my awareness is only on the mala bead of the current chant. I am not aware of the beads that have already been chanted and moved. I am unaware of the beads yet to be touched. My awareness is focused only on that one bead. My fingers rise with its shape. My fingers fall gently in between that bead and the next. The bead is moved and my attention now is on the bead I am chanting.

I can think of probably more than 108 reasons why I do not think of myself as being love. But for this one moment, this one chant, this present breath with no others guaranteed, this single bead, I am love. And for this day, Aham Prema, one breath, one bead, only this breath, only this bead.

Ginger Snap Thread

To know or be around me is to know or be with a child playing dress up in a tattered weary and old body. Sometimes I think I am like Peter Pan and have refused to grow up. With a giggle, Life conspired to make me an adult first and then I became a child.  I think, perhaps, I appreciate the gift more having received it in reverse.

And so the child dips her Ginger Snap cookie into the adult's cup of coffee. The adult sighs as her eyes refuse to see the words she needs to read.  The child giggles and slurps the soaked Ginger Snap cookie and while talking with her mouth full, observes to the adult, "You can see...maybe you're just learning to read."

“Sometimes,' said Pooh, 'the smallest things take up the most room in your heart.”  - A.A. Milne